Effect of coating methods on thermal conductivity of graphene-coated fabrics for welding protective clothing

Blade coating and screen printing methods were used to prepare graphene-modified fabric to study their thermal conductivity and molten metal splashes heating properties in our research. The effect of the coating method on thermal properties was discussed. The fabric with blade coating had lower penetration depth, the in-plane and cross-plane thermal conductivity reached 2.08 W/(m·K) and 0.48 W/(m·K) which meant the anisotropy value was 4.3 while the control fabric was 2.4. The elevated temperature after impacting of molten metal splashes declined about 30% from 27 °C to 19 °C. About screen printing samples, the in-plane to cross-plane ratio of thermal conductivity was 3.5, and the temperature rise was 25 °C.